Chapter Ninety-Three: The Marvelous Uses of the Beast-Shape Talismans

"Do we not go and lend them a hand?" Vivian glanced at the battle raging at the gate of Border Town from afar, then asked Zhou Tian in a low voice.

"They can only rely on themselves." Zhou Tian kept his eyes fixed on the direction of the Beast Forest and answered with a calm expression. "An opponent for an opponent, a general for a general. Our task is only to deal with that pack of Fireboar Demons. If we succeed in holding back the entire herd, yet the garrison of Border Town cannot even handle a few ordinary low-level beasts, then even if we help them this time, they will still have no hope of surviving the battles to come."

"How heartless."

"Less talk. The fat pigs are coming." Ignoring Vivian's teasing, Zhou Tian cast one stern look toward the Beast Forest, then quietly signaled the others.

At his gesture, the people beside him slipped silently from their positions and each found a place to lie in ambush.

Just as Zhou Tian and the others concealed themselves, the herd of Fireboar Demons, led by the Fireboar King, began to emerge from the forest.

With its intelligence, the Fireboar King could not possibly be unaware of how dangerous its present conduct was. Once it left the Beast Forest, if it encountered a human expert outside, it could perish at any moment. However, first, the Fireboar King had great confidence in its own strength and believed that few could match it now; second, it intended to annihilate the border town where Zhou Tian was located as quickly as possible and then depart at once. Thus, although it clearly knew how perilous its actions were, in order to vent its fury, the Fireboar King still resolutely led its clan out of the forest and toward the beast siege beyond.

Then, halfway through their charge, the Fireboar King abruptly halted.

After snorting several times, it suddenly let out a howl, ordered the Fireboar Demons behind it to retreat by several dozen paces, and then instantly completed a spell, hurling it toward the direction where Zhou Tian was hiding.

"Damn it! How did it find me?" Zhou Tian cried out. He sprang up at once, leaping clear of his hiding place with both hands and feet working together, and only then did he look back with lingering fear at where he had just been.

"If that had hit me, it would have been bad." Seeing that the place he had occupied had been utterly destroyed by the Fireboar King's spell, Zhou Tian could not help but sigh. Then he turned his attention to the Fireboar King not far away.

After snorting a few more times, a flash of bewilderment crossed the Fireboar King's eyes, but in the end, blazing anger rose within them. With a roar, it fixed Zhou Tian with a glare and charged straight at him, tusks lowered.

"So it found me through smell!" Zhou Tian knew very well that a pig's sense of smell was even keener than a dog's. He had simply not thought in that direction at first, which was why he had made no preparations against it. Now, seeing the Fireboar King's behavior, he finally understood why he had been discovered, and his expression grew serious.

Why the Fireboar King was so hostile to him, Zhou Tian did not know. But from the situation before him, it was clear that the beast had already memorized his scent. In other words, so long as the Fireboar King did not forget Zhou Tian's smell, there could be no possibility of peace between them. Either the Fireboar King would be slain by Zhou Tian, or Zhou Tian would have to endure its pursuit.

Understanding his own predicament, and knowing that the Fireboar Demons possessed extraordinary olfactory powers, Zhou Tian no longer thought of ambushing them.

"Come out, all of you! These fat pigs can smell us. Leave the Fireboar King to me. As for the rest of the Fireboar Demons, you should have no trouble handling them!" Still locked in a deadly stare with the Fireboar King, Zhou Tian suddenly raised his voice and spoke to Vivian and the others hidden in the shadows.

"No problem. Leave them to us!" Leaping out from his hiding place, Afra flashed a set of white teeth at Zhou Tian, then gripped her dragon spear and charged toward the herd of Fireboar Demons.

Zhou Tian was very confident in Vivian and the others' abilities. Since he had entrusted the Fireboar Demons to them, he no longer paid the herd any mind. Fixing all his attention on the Fireboar King, he suddenly turned and fled toward the rear.

Seeing Zhou Tian attempt to run, the Fireboar King naturally was not about to allow it. After a howl, it immediately gave chase.

"Dodge, and dodge again!" Relying on the astonishing speed he had gained from his stat points, Zhou Tian could easily evade whatever attack the Fireboar King launched from behind. While keeping an eye on the battle at Border Town, he also secretly calculated how far he had lured the Fireboar King.

"This should be about right." After estimating the distance he had run, Zhou Tian suddenly stopped and turned to face the Fireboar King, which was charging at him.

The Fireboar King did not know why Zhou Tian had stopped, but whatever the reason, to it, seeing an opponent who had only ever known how to run finally halt in place was enough to make it very pleased.

It let out a delighted cry and then, heedless of everything, charged at Zhou Tian.

Just as the Fireboar King thought it could run him through at once, it suddenly realized that its body had become utterly immobile.

"Immortal Binding Rope!" Silently releasing his treasure and leaving the Fireboar King unable to move, only for it to be flung away by inertia, Zhou Tian gave a cold smile and walked toward the beast, which had already lost its ability to act.

"You... des... troy... me!" As a high-level magic beast, the Fireboar King could actually speak human words. But perhaps because it had no one to converse with, its speech was quite awkward. Still, if one listened carefully, one could understand what it meant.

"Sorry, I have no habit of sparing my enemies." Zhou Tian replied icily to the Fireboar King's plea. Then, taking up a long blade he had casually exchanged for, he severed the Fireboar King's head in a single stroke.

After finding the Fireboar King's magic core and converting it into spiritual energy, Zhou Tian looked at the beast's massive corpse and said, "Tell me, why make things so difficult? I let you go several times already. Why did you insist on courting death?" Having said that, he seemed to think of something. Slapping his forehead, he hurriedly ran back in the direction he had come from.

"Earlier, in order to keep from getting the Fireboar King captured and having the Fireboar Demons fight desperately to save their king, I ran a bit too far. I hope Vivian and the others can handle the Fireboar Demons' attack. Otherwise, if something were to happen to them, then even if I killed the Fireboar King, what would be the point?"

With anxious urgency, Zhou Tian unleashed his full speed and, in a blur beyond the eye's ability to follow, raced back to the place where they had previously intended to ambush the herd.

Only...

"What you just said... was it all true?" Zhou Tian found it hard to believe that such a thing could have happened while he was away. Had he known there was such a method, why would he have needed to clash head-on with the Fireboar Demons at all? As he marveled at how unexpected events could be, he also felt that his earlier struggle seemed to have been utterly meaningless.

It turned out that after Zhou Tian had led the Fireboar King away, Vivian and the others had at first honestly leapt out and fought the Fireboar Demons. However, because they had no mounts and could not fully unfurl their strength, Afra used the jade talisman Zhou Tian had given her to simulate a giant dragon.

The Beast Mimic Talisman could perfectly imitate any kind of living creature. This meant that when Afra used it to conjure a giant dragon, that dragon possessed all the abilities a true dragon should have, apart from combat power being somewhat different from the real thing.

And in addition to its dragon speech magic and formidable close combat ability, a dragon also possessed a power known as dragon might.

Because of dragon might, merely standing before a dragon was enough to frighten weaker beasts into losing their courage. Until a means was found to counter dragon might, no creature of lesser intelligence would dare give birth to the notion of resisting a dragon.

If the Fireboar King had still been present, the simulated dragon might not have had much effect. But because Zhou Tian had led the Fireboar King away, with that king no longer there, how could the ordinary Fireboar Demons withstand the force of dragon might? In the end, before the dragon conjured by the Beast Mimic Talisman, they were all so terrified that they fled in a panic, rolling and scrambling, back into the depths of the forest in the blink of an eye.